With an eye toward the future, we are exploring collaborative partnerships
The Pajaro Valley Health Care District (PVHCD) board is exploring potential external partnerships with other healthcare organizations, to help ensure Watsonville Community Hospital will be sustainable for the longterm, and be able to serve its community for generations to come.
We honor our community who rallied in 2021 to save the hospital from closing at the hands of the previous for-profit owners. You are the reason we are here today, and we understand the importance of this community owning its own hospital. The voters stepped up earlier this year again to pass Measure N, which will allow us to buy the land and buildings of the hospital, and make long-overdue hospital infrastructure improvements and renovations. It’s an exciting time! But the Measure N funds are only able to be spent on infrastructure, not on things like IT systems or computers, or smaller equipment like portable ultrasound units, anesthesia machines, patient beds or amenities for patient rooms. So, now we are looking to continue our operational and financial turnaround plan with the exploration of partnerships.
We’ve developed a set of guiding principles with input from the community to set guardrails around future partnerships and ensure community ownership of the hospital. The board will not be selling the hospital, replacing senior leadership, or outsourcing staff. Instead, we are looking to collaborate with other organizations to achieve shared economies of scale to be able to operate more efficiently and continue to add services our community needs.
If you’d like more information, including a copy of our RFP, please click here.